By Jay Sorgi • Posted April 16, 2026

Longtime and retired Villanova theology professor Dr. Suzanne Toton has had a finger on the pulse of change within one of the world’s most far-reaching humanitarian organizations, Catholic Relief Services.

In her book “When Doing Good Isn’t Good Enough” (Georgetown University Press, 2025, 244 pp., $44.95), which she recently presented at Villanova, she shares powerful observations of how CRS transformed its mission and strategy from an organization that focused on charity to one also of solidarity and justice within the framework of Catholic identity and Catholic social teaching.

“For CRS, it wasn’t simply a matter of switching from charity to a socially just systemic change,” said Toton. “It was a much more fundamental transformation, and it had to do with embracing this Catholic identity. It had to do fundamentally with a way of seeing with a new lens, a justice lens.”

Toton served as a CRS partnership coordinator for Villanova from 2005 to 2016 and was a senior consultant for CRS’ Global Solidarity Network from 2007 to 2013.

Her awareness of the change from charity to a model of Catholic social justice came from a presentation by Michael Wiest, a CRS executive vice president who spoke about the Rwandan genocide during the 1990s, and how so many of the humanitarian crises “brought the agency to its knees.”

“He said it was not that the staff were unaware of the tensions that existed in the country between the Tutsi and Hutu peoples, but CRS staff learned to work around them, telling themselves that resolving these kinds of tensions was not part of its mandate,” Toton said.

“He said, ‘How could we not have seen this tension as being part of our mandate? How could we not have seen what was in front of us all along? What did we refuse to see? Why didn’t we act?’ And he said, as a Catholic agency, ‘How could we not see this problem of hatred and distrust as being part of our mission?’”

Toton said that the organization experienced a groundswell of change in its approach and strategy to one that went beyond simple charity, officially acting on the change in December 1996.

An example of the new strategy came in the CRS response to Hurricane Mitch in 1998, a natural disaster that killed more than 11,000 in Central America.

“The first decision was not to rebuild the poverty or return the people to the status quo of the rich and the poor,” she said.

“Central Americans, first and foremost, would hold responsibility for rebuilding the country. Catholic Relief Services would not lead that recovery effort, or allow itself to be perceived as leading it. The people who were most affected needed to have a sense of their own dignity, of their own power, of their own responsibility for their societies, their communities, (and) CRS’s role would be that of being in solidarity with the local church, local organizations and local communities.”

She said the community groups needed to include all those affected by the disaster.

“These committees needed to be broad based. They needed to include women. They also needed to include evangelicals, because they were part of the community, and youth and others,” she said. “These committees would reflect and represent the local community’s priorities and decisions in the reconstruction process.”
The focus of the community groups was not on rebuilding old factories, municipal buildings, or community centers but on schools first.

“They said there is nothing like hearing school bells ring, packing lunches, and sending their kids off each day to restore a sense of normalcy,” said Toton.

“CRS supported efforts to resolve conflict, enabling the communities to do social audits, to monitor the spending, to organize and enable communities to be in relationship with local officials and advocate in their own name.”

Toton says that this historic change by CRS has more effectively reflected the approach of Christ as present to those in greatest need, accompanying and empowering each person the Father created.

“We are people who are guided by love, love of neighbor; and love of neighbor requires justice. Justice isn’t a nice idea. It is concrete. It is implemented. It is a reality. It is a matter of creating just relationships,” Toton said.

“Our Catholic identity is that of the Good Samaritan, of noticing those people who have been beaten up and left to die along the side of the road and not walking by, but asking the question, ‘How can we keep this from happening?’

“Yes, (by) responding immediately, but also asking, ‘How can we keep this from happening again and again and again? How can we prevent exploitation and injustice?”
She said such a sea change has turned into not only picking up the person on the side of the road, bandaging, transporting home, feeding, housing, loving and embracing them, but more.

“It’s also embracing the need to prevent this from happening. It fundamentally has to do with identity, who we are as a people. It has to do with our vision of life, our vision of who we are as individuals, who we are as people of faith, who we are as an agency, who we are as a Church.”